What was the Point of Langermann's 24th Panzer Corps? (And more...) Stalingrad Addendum 4
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Several questions and interesting comments from my recent Battlestorm Stalingrad series, including the question of what was the point of Landermann's 24th Panzer Corps having just one division in it? And why Hoth's 4th Panzer Army didn't directly help Paulus's 6th Army and instead went a different route?
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ABOUT TIK
History isn’t as boring as some people think, and my goal is to get people talking about it. I also want to dispel the myths and distortions that ruin our perception of the past by asking a simple question - “But is this really the case?”. I have a 2:1 Degree in History and a passion for early 20th Century conflicts (mainly WW2). I’m therefore approaching this like I would an academic essay. Lots of sources, quotes, references and so on. Only the truth will do.
This video is discussing events or concepts that are academic, educational and historical in nature. This video is for informational purposes and was created so we may better understand the past and learn from the mistakes others have made.
"Oy! You got a Loicense for that free speech?" - UK 77th Brigade
Read up and research Agenda 21 think of the Nazis but with advanced technology...dare I mention The book of Revelation
You guys are losing it. This is nothing compared to the Cold War. Or WWII.
Except with the internet. The internet makes surveillance so much easier because everyone voluntarily gives up all their information and carry devices in their pockets that track every movement they make. You can turn that crap off.
I'm american. Just what is the 77 th Brigade?
@@j3lny425 I'm an American with the power of the introwebs and apparently it's like the nsa it's their domestic spying and operation mocking bird type agency
I think that Nazi Germany's biggest failure in WWII was not realizing how stubborn Joseph Stalin would be with never giving up. Until this point, countries grew so perplexed with the success of the German forces that they ultimately were unable to cope with what they were experiencing. This caused countries to collapse into a state of defeatism that led for calls to sue for peace, or risk annihilation. The USSR did gain knowledge from seeing this. At one point when it looked as if Moscow would be overrun by German forces, Stalin asked his ministers if they should surrender Moscow, or fight. I'm not 100% sure this happened, but if it did, the chose to fight, and a resulting Winter attack was made on German forces in the midst of Winter that drove them back and saved Moscow. This was only one instance of such a turning point. In the fighting that led to and encompassed Stalingrad, the USSR was again on the brink because of food rations. The German forces did not know how close they were to breaking, so far as I know, and because of this no new strategy was devised may have helped tilt the situation into the favor of them collapsing completely.
11:20 Hitler wanted to keep forces in Rzhev/Moscow area because the Germans expected an attack there. And they were right. The operation at Rzhev was the priority of the Soviet leadership, with more resources committed there than for the Stalingrad's liberation. The Stalingrad operation worked out well, while the Rzhev's operation failed and was swept under the historical carpet.
ruclips.net/video/L-E9ZsactbM/видео.html
@@oddballsok Thanks for the appropriate video link.
I read 1984 a few weeks ago. Some of the stuff in there gives you goosebumps - it was published in 1949 and some of the things Orwell imagined are, indeed, with us now.
For instance, in his book every living room had a Telescreen on the wall - it watches and listens 24/7.
We have devices now that can listen to your conversations in your own home - not so sure about watching. Yet.
George Orwell's real name was Eric Arthur Blair. As far as I can gather, he was part of the Fabian Society. He seems to have broken rank, published the book with some inner knowledge and then got killed for it (he died a year after publishing the book). There is a reason his book is considered prophetic, he knew what some people were pushing for.
@@NathanMulder The real-life Hungarian Bond Villain was 19 around that time wasn't he?
I bet he had a copy on him all times and still has it.
Hi, TIK. Another great video my friend! I drank one of the beers I promised to you while watching it, so I only have 4 left.. Watching all of your great historical work has helped me realize how completely complicated it is to "go to war". As a child I thought that 2 armies met in a city or field and just fought for years until there was a winner. Basically I thought war was nonstop fighting. At least that's how it looked from movies and TV shows. Obviously I have changed my beliefs over time. But watching your videos has shown me how much planning goes into every battle: staging areas, supply areas and logistics chains, reserves, its almost unbelievable. And how many "chiefs" there are - generals, majors, colonels, supreme commanders, presidents and prime ministers - the chain of command is sooooooo long and deep. How does anyone keep it all straight? It boggles the mind - at least it boggles my tiny mind. I would love to see a video showing how a battle was planned out, what the generals considered before fighting, how men and equipment were dispersed, how the chain of command was handled, how they worked with their logistics lines, how they got their men fed and resupplied. Your maps and images would be helpful to someone like me, a cave man who needs visuals. But you are TIK, and what ever you make is great! Cheers!
No matter how bad it gets, Stalingrad was still worse because they didn’t have TIK videos to watch.
The meme is strong here, wherein the loser with benefit of hindsight declares "I could have been a contender!"
Also, 100,000 people died in one city, or something.
When this series are done, you' ll have won yourself a place in the YT Hall of Fame historiography about WW II and maybe more.
Superb job TIK !
Great video like always. As a current military commander I have to agree about the “take the pressure” off approach. Even in today’s information era you can be overloaded quickly. I’ve shown many of your videos to my officers, loved the Market Garden series.
There are a lot of patrons and you deserve it!
Hey TIK, I made my sister watch your operation Crusader videos while she was quarantined (She's a platoon commander in a light infantry battalion). Considering she watched the entire thing in a day, I'd say it was a success!
lol Tig I always think just that very thing. When life is tough for me I always stop and consider "at least it's not Stalingrad bad.'. We all know and have considered how brutal it was to fight and die for either side during that terrible battle. Let's give thanks for that!
Also in regards to Hoth, he was setting himself up to flank those defending against Paulus, and flanking is always good. All the while by taking the eastern railway line, he was cutting a Russian supply route to their southern forces. Which also provided a supply line for himself and eventually Paulus too as they both closed in on Stalingrad.
“Now kids.....if you take nothing else away from this, at least remember this one thing:
If you want to TIK off your history teacher, tell him about why strength in numbers only can be seen as outnumbering if you use your reinforcements right.”
Love it.....never got that.
Very good presentation.
Minute 09:00 you are right! Also makes sense the choice of Operation Saturn that has an attack direction Millerovo-Rostov-Maikop in the railway direction from North to South.
If you're upset at having to spend a few months indoors, the people of Pompeii did it for a thousand years and they're not complaining!
Top kek
Yes, but they're a bunch of stoners.
Too soon.....
From the mosaics I've seen, they were also addicted to porn.
Thanks, Automated Troll Account! :) :) :)
Excellent Info + a bit of feeling, perspective and current events can only improve teaching of history.Was lucky enough to have a grammar school teacher who did Greeks and Persians with a bit of that and always visualized those lessons with interest and remembered them ever after. Lest we forget.
Including railway lines on your maps would be a nice bonus. This should be standard practice for any war after the American Civil War. Makes the tactics so much easier to understand.
The Soviets are always defending more points then the Germans are attacking. The Germans, on the offensive, usually had a superiority of numbers at the point of contact -- this is the advantage of being on the offensive. And the Soviets, as you've shown, threw away much of their strength in poorly implemented counter-attacks.
I've mentioned this before, but the northern area of the former Russian empire had a much better rail network. The reason is that prior to WW1 the French bankrolled the rail network so the Russian army could attack Germany sooner and take pressure of the French army. The French didn't really care that much about Austro-Hungary, so no extensive rail network in the south.
The US Civil War also, both sides, used rail road lines heavily not only between battles but also during battles to move to concentration and contact but to supply as well. This may be your point, so my addition may not be needed.
Couldn't agree more.
@@richardcutts196 That's really interesting. So it can be argued that the French inadvertently played a major role in slowing the German drive to the south.
@@davidburroughs7068 That was certainly true at Manassas. But I had in mind Sherman's campaign into Georgia where he followed the rail line and also after the fall of Richmond when the Army of Northern Virginia retreated up it's rail line.
People always talk about changes in weapon technology like the Minié ball and machine guns, but really it's the railroad that most shaped warfare from 1860 well into WW2.
1984 has been creeping closer year by year since 1948 at ,least. Orwell saw it as he wrote the book.
Thank you for keeping uploading these interesting video. You have been doing eastern front topics for years. I really appreciate your video. Maybe next video is about you and what do you do?
Thanks. These are very good. Hope you and yours are well. Peace.
*Me drinking coffee*
TIK: "Don't spit out your coffee"
*Me almost spits out coffee*
This...
Great content as always mate. Appreciate it.
Thanks for all the research and information that you give in every subject that is presented to us
Great video! Looking forward to more.
Hi tik i really enjoy your content and rarely comment. Thanks for your effort and keep it up! Greetings from germany!
Brravo! For explaning this very interesting and imprtant part of the History!
Hey TIK, I don't find you videos a distraction but a great lesson, especially for people who haven't been in the military. Over and over you show that it is logistics that decide conflicts. When I was a child I fantasized about swirling tanks and airplanes in combat (this was before I saw people die in combat and it lost it's "entertainment" value), but when I got in the military I discovered that if you don't have fuel, all that stuff is screwed. Fuel brings the tanks to the field of battle. Fuel flies planes and moves the tanks, trucks, the fuel, the men and ammo. Guess what the allies concentrated on bombing from the air? Fuel, ball bearings, and the transit system, all logistics. As many people have noted the Nazi regime created some of the best tanks ever (though the Soviet ones were better). The Western Power tanks were no match for them. But without fuel the Nazi ones couldn't have a dramatic impact. The West, and in particular the USA, had all of this in multiple time more. Shoot down a few hundred of our planes? That is ok we have thousands more coming, and a way to deliver them and fly them. I know I am going on here but logistics is the key to warfare. I can't remember the Generals name and I am paraphrasing but the statement was along the line "amateur warriors study troop movements, general study logistics." Not 100% accurate but the entire Nazi system of fighting depended on concentration of fire power, which meant bullets and fuel, which comes through logistics. And they didn't have the system to do it.
Love your videos Sir.
By 01:12 I already knew i'd need to watch this video 5x over (edit: typos)
Without hesitation ' your best opening to video ever - and I've watched a few of 'em by now
You said it's better to look at individual battles rather than taking a step back and looking at the broader picture, but I think you need to do both in order to truly have a good understanding of the war
After 1984 I really recommend Anthony Burgess' 1985 - particularly the part shedding light on it's predecessor.
Although not the same in reason, just point people to the phrase defeat in detail if they are confused about the idea of local superiority in numbers despite overall numerical inferiority.
Montemayor has a short 3 min video that demonstrates it well enough that people who dont see it as obvious can apply it to your larger scale maps.
See also: Schwerpunkt
Thank you for discussing my question TIK!
Great video man, thanks for the effort you put in it
Great from TIK as usual. Good Explanation on the question of being "outnumbered". Going by your explanation I still think you prove the Germans are outnumbered because when you account for battle attrition, the fact the Soviets can send in newer troops at a rate the Germans cannot, and overall the Soviets would go on to commit a larger number of troops to the whole front than the Germans could. Therefore STRATEGICALLY the soviets outnumber the Germans.
At some given battles as you have shown, The Germans had TACTICAL numerical superiority.
The 77 brigade seriously exists?!? TIK I need a hug...
Hi TIK, I've enjoyed watching your many interesting videos on the eastern front and other theatres of World War Two. Listening to your comments regarding Hoth's 4th Panzer Army turning south before reaching Stalingrad I have to say the original plans for Case Blue called for 4th Panzer Army to first reach and capture Stalingrad with 6th Army following in it's wake and protect it's northern flank. When the Soviets conducted a strategic retreat to the east, Hitler interpreted this as "the Russian is finished" and he ordered 4th Panzer Army turned south earlier than planned, creating a massive traffic jam as the panzers cut across the rear of 6th Army and causing a logistical nightmare. This change in plans led to bitter arguments between Halder and Hitler and Halder resigned on September 14, 1942 saying his nerves had had enough and he couldn't reason with a man like Hitler who was completely untrained. My Uncle Oskar Arendt was an interpreter with the 24th Panzer Division at Stalingrad, was wounded in October and flown out before the pocket closed and he survived the war. I have to agree, Hitler was clue-less when it came to understanding the concepts of providing enough means to an end and thought he could simply order units wily-nily and achieve objectives.
@TIK thanks for answering my (and everybody else’s) question. I appreciate it.
Hi TIK, i have subscribed to your channel for several months now and have seen several dozen videos of you. They are very informative and educational, i would like to thank you for that and keep it up. Being very interested in World War II war history and be a amateur war historian myself, i literally enjoy your videos, but i still miss something. I would love to see a video special or a general one (which suits you best) about the difference and the division of tasks between the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres) and the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). I would also like to see attention in that story, according to the rumor that there were actually conflicts between the two and competition. This resulted in underperformance of both and therefore came to a point that Hitler eventually (1941) intervened and divided the OKH and OKW to specific fronts. The OKH would control the Russian front and the OKW the Western front. However, after that reclassification, both continued to underperform due to the influence of the hitler himself in important battles and decisions. Well, I think you understand what I mean about this interesting issue.
George Orwell lived in 1984 before it was cool. Seriously, this book is his vengeance and it captures some of his first hand experience in Ministry of Information, right down to architecture. He was a secret agent (like a lot of british writers and journalists) and hated it, he possibly was killed because of this book but he made his point. A man of great courage and talant.
Good video. Thanks for uploading it
TIK you could use small dots or points then to use squares to show the units on the battlefield. One dot or point could stand for 10 or 30 soldiers. If they are depleted you could make less dots and write the number of the unit over the dots.
hi tik, love your videos, just wanna say that having a strenght bar near the units, representative of their manpower would be great :), like 2 cm per 10K men, its a detail but when i watch the map wich are really nicely done, i cant read the situation of the units without repeating your video to get the numbers. thanks for your work, i like people who are critical with the world they are living in.
Tik,when you said "don't spit out your coffee", you nearly drowned me!
the rail network was a critical factor in the whole Stalingrad campaign , including Winterstorm ,
Paulus was advancing in a rail vacuum , stressing his own logistics , even afterward one rail line was barely enought to supply two armies
The other reason why they kept the 24th Panzer Corps headquarters is that a panzer corps headquarters is an asset you just don't throw away when you fight a flexible operational battle like the Germans did in WWII. That headquarters might have had different units assigned to it later in the battle, particularly if they would have wanted to fight an tactical offensive battle somewhere else in the battlefield.
I have to agree with Nathan on the destruction of units. I've been mostly studying the "grand strategy " view point of the 20th century. But recently focused on the direct military progression and iam stunned every time I think about those little boxes with the cute symbols on them that represent 10,000 or more lives. Just imagine 10,000 men walking/marching down the street. Even at 4-abrest in column that's about a mile long. Just infantry, you have supply trucks, medical units and other rear area units. Hard to fathom.
Langermann was given a order to hoard all of the 1st Panzer Army's toilet rolls, that's why the 4th Panzer Army came in from the southwest to get them back.
Feldmarschall Karen would like to speak to the Russians' manager.
Yeah, watching historical videos about "life" on the eastern front puts my problems in perspective and makes me appreciate how easy I have it.
I want a pillow embroidered with 'It won't be quite as bad as Stalingrad'.
Just a curiosity: I notice you use the word "truck" to describe German motorized transport. Has the British term "lorry" been replaced by the American"truck" in popular usage in the UK, or did you make that accommodation for your international audience?
My dad used to be a truck driver, and we used both words. So from my point of view, they're synonyms. Truck sounds better though which is why I use it, although I may have used lorry in previous videos. But I don't really care for the British vs American language distinction, since language is for communication, not tribalism.
@@TheImperatorKnight Your dad was a trucker,not a lorryer, then. Sure sounds better. Better than being a shrubber. (Couldn't resist a John Cleese moment).
TIK, you are right that adding layers of command helps relieve the commanders at individual levels of the management of smaller units, but there is also the question of what is commanded, what resources controlled. You want to free your tactical commanders to worry about tactics, not supply chain? Either add specific supply/trains formations and have a subordinate take care of the problem? That distributes rather than relieves. Move the logistics to the parent unit? Often the better idea because the higher echelon commander is not as involved in details at the tactical level, but you can't shift the responsibility upwards too far, else it becomes detached from the maneuver groups and their logistical realities. In WW2, divisions were almost universally maneuver formations, and you had some logistical capacity there, but not much at regimental level and progressively less (but also more combat oriented) as you moved down the command structure. For the U.S. Army in Europe, corps were also considered maneuver formations, but had some logistical capacity to manage attached formations like engineer battalions, attached heavier artillery than the divisional artillery, as well as independent light and medium artillery, cavalry squadrons, etc. Primary logistical responsibility was at army level and higher. I believe this was altered only a few years ago I the U.S. Army, though with increased logistical responsibility pushed downwards some, in large part due to the requirements of net-centric doctrine, which calls for further increases in operational tempo.
Listening to this video in the background and TIK mentions playing Crusader Kings 2 as I am playing it.
That was a weird feeling lol
TIK, What is your take on Operation Mars? It happened at almost the same time as Uranus, but didn't meet succes. What went different? Did the Soviets prepare it different or was the German defense in the center just better? I once heard that Mars did had succes in the sense that it prevented the Germans from sending
reserves southwards (possibly troops from Army Group Center itself, which were exhausted after Mars), but I'm not sure about this. The Southern Front didn't have the logistical capability to support more men.
What is your take on Operation Mars and what effects had it on the southern front?
If I may, what went different in Mars I believe it's the deployment of both forces. In Uranus, basically the Soviets created a Schwerpunkt of their own. They led the Germans into a trap, making it seem that they try to hold out in the city, but they concentrated their forces on the flanks where the defences were the weakest.
With Mars, the Germans had no desire to attack. They would launch counter-operations at Rjev to regain crucial lost territory or disturb soviet preparations, but no strategic strike like the drive towards Groznyi or Stalingrad was supposed to be. Since the Germans were on the defensive, there were not quite a lot of gaps to be exploited. And the Germans also had reserves to be sent in.
Hi TIK, I have been watching your videos for so long now. I got my son to create me on here so I can express my views and opinions. I signed up to your other channels as well and your funny cartoon ones are private not sure why? Also a young lad like yourself needs be teaching in a university so full of knowledge.
5:56 Good point the importance of railways is often understated, so from a tactical perspective Hoth's approach is very much justified. Apparently there is a railway from Kropotkin that terminates in Elista (in Kalmykia) and the front toward Astrakhan does not go much further beyond this town. Earlier in the battle the German 29th Motorised Division was positioned around here opposite the Soviet 28th Army. So obviously the Germans using commandeered Russian broad gauge trains here because I doubt there would have been adequate time for gauge conversion works.
As far as the Germans being outnumbered it reminds me of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Campaign. The Union massively outnumbered the confederacy in general, but Jackson was so good at maneuvering and concentrating at the right time that he outnumbered the Union at every battle in that campaign except for the first which was due to bad intelligence.
Hey Tik, nice videos im a huge fan! I have a question for any1 who sees this and I want to collect general opinions. I'm an economics student and for my undergrad thesis I was thinking about writing about how Germany's economic situation didnt do them any favors in the build up and during the war. Do people think that it is possible to cover such a topic in the detail required?
It's possible, but it depends. Have you watched my Hitler's Socialism video? A lot of economics of the Third Reich covered there. Most historians have no clue about economics, so do what I did - use their books and think critically. Don't just swallow their conclusions.
Depending on how you approach it, you'd have to go into the archives. But Aly's "Hitler's Beneficiaries" is probably the book you need to pick up first because it tackles your question directly. Gunter Reimann's "Vampire Economy" will be essential because that was pre-war too, and shows how the economy was failing. Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" too, but be careful with him, he calls everything capitalism because he doesn't know the definitions. Ludwig von Mises also covers the Third Reich in the 'epilogue' of his book 'Socialism'. While not entirely on the Third Reich specifically, I'd absolutely recommend getting Mises's 'Socialism' because it will absolutely give you the theoretical grounding and ammunition you need to tackle National Socialism. It will show you which parts of the economy to look at. Bear in mind that Mises was an Austrian, and fled from the Nazis when they took over because he was Jewish. They burned his library. So he knew a thing or two about them.
@@TheImperatorKnight thank you for your reply and yes I did. That's where I originally got the idea from. I'm going to have a look at the books you recommended in the coming weeks and speak with my professors but i will definitely keep in mind what the authors say on the context and be careful with that. If these books can provide great sources and numbers to work with that'd get me well on my way.
Thanks again so much.
That's a question that was always playing on my mind.
It was a common practice in the Heer for divisions to swap around corps. Hence it was common for a corps commander to have as few as one to as many as six divisions under his command. These links would even shift from day to day. In the case of the Leaping Horsemen they were over-staffed with talent precisely so that they would truly come up to speed with their panzer brothers in double-quick time. That's why the 24th had so many command tanks -- double what you'd expect. Remember that command tanks are Mark IIIs with only dummy main guns -- and stuffed with extra radios and a map table. Yes, it swung up and away when not needed. This scheme was abandoned when the Mark III was pulled from front line duty. Command tanks were supposed to blend in with the main battle tanks, of course.
On Corps etc it's more about the Corp level assets that the one division might need. So for instance a British Infantry division had lots of artillery, though all 25 pdrs. Corps level assets would be medium or heavy batteries, logistics, signals, possibly maintenance workshops. So whilst a foot infantry division would't have it's own organic transport a Corps likely would have trucks etc to move it. Which still wouldn't make it a motorised division. Also the corps would likely have an area of operation or responsibility which extended way behind the frontlines and involved lots of rear echelon units.
TIK, a quick question about the airlift to Stalingrad. Could part of the reason that the Luftwaffe didn't send as many flights to Stalingrad, at least initially. is that they did not have the supplies on hand at the airfields to begin with? After all, there is no point in sending an empty freighter, freight train or cargo plane if you don't need to, as it wastes fuel for no reason. I know that the Red Air Force played a big factor in throttling the air lift, but could the lack of supplies at the right place and time also have played a part in the failure of the airlift?
I've read that the span on control where you are still effective is about 5 people or 5 sub elements.
If the Soviets and the Germans were equal in number, the Germans automatically loose because convention says you need a 3 to 1 ratio to successfully attack a defense.
When we look down at a map, we see everything but get down behind a 3D nap and all you can see is the back of your subordinates heads and you're for the most part, you're depending on them to give you information on what's in front of them and none of them has the complete picture.
In war games, they have something called The Bizerk Factor. People can do extraordinary and unexpected things when cornered.
The farther you are away from the point of contact, the less you know but the closer you get can do the same thing. Proper distance gives you proper perspective.
Thank you for a truly educational series. Idea , your mention of it being hard to know the state of units on the map ....... if a unit is at 50% could the icon for that unit have 50% of its face color be made neutral to show the loss of strength? Again thanks
Thanks for all this ww2 material you provide to us. Outstanding in TIK & ANTON
On TIK's last point, that of the overall disadvantage of Paulus, in contrast to the (in the words of the comment) "ground situation" where the Wehrmacht nearly always had the advantage:
The conduct of the Wehrmacht in this situation is very Napoleonic in nature, as all that is required for victory is that a commander possesses a local superiority at the decisive point. Making my point through TIK's 10 v. 12 example, let us say the Soviets (with 12 battalions) had to split up into two commands with six battalions each either to get through a mountain pass or to sustain themselves logistically (see TIK's explanation about the alteration of Hoth's axis of advance). The most useful tactic for the Germans (with 10 battalions) would then be to detach 1 unit as a Kampfgruppe under their best Major/Oberstleutnant to hold up one of the six-battalion Soviet columns. The remaining nine battalions of Germans could move against the other six-battalion Soviet column.
Ta-da!
The German commander has suddenly gained for himself a 9/6 advantage!
The 9/6 is what matters, as that should be the only battle that is fought in earnest. The Kampfgruppe facing down the other six battalions would have instructions to act as skirmishers, contain the attentions of their enemy, and generally not die. Were it to be necessary, the Kampfgruppe would also move to interpose itself between their opponents and the 9/6 battle, for if not, that would become a less than desirable 9/12 battle.
Once the 9/6 battle is won, the nine battalions can rejoin their lonely Kampfgruppe and whip the remaining six battalions of Soviets in a 10/6 battle.
It's like boxing really; it doesn't matter if your opponent is bigger than you as long as you aim your punches at places where your fists are bigger than their their targets.
Leningrad is definitely not just an ego boost for Hitler. Taking the city would establish a shorter land connection to Finland instead of going through Norway. It would give Germany full control of the Baltic Sea which couldn’t be threatened by the Soviets now. Also it would free up many of army group north’s troops and maybe allow a couple divisions to go further north to capture Murmansk. It might have a little bit of a morale hit to the Soviets but it would mainly be a strategic victory that gives the Germans many options in the north after. So definitely not just an ego boost...
I agree. The capture of Leningrad and then the northern ports would have had a huge impact on the war. That subject is probably worth a good video on its own.
I remember reading somewhere that a commander should have a "command span" of no more than five subordinate units; otherwise, it becomes too hard to keep track of it all.
@TIK How are they this much depleted? you covered priority of reinforcements before and they actually gained mens over the course of 42. This before the army split and the attack on stalingrad.
In your graphic interface would it be possible to add a bar indicating approx number of soldiers and perhaps a second one indicating current level of gear?
Since you seem to have very good info on status of most formations. That would also show easely the difference in strength between Soviet and Nazi formations.
And no I have no clue if this is easy or hard to do just seemed like a nice bit of extra visual info.
Hey TIK you should definitely check out the Russian website pamyat-naroda.ru: they've got a huge archive with ultra-detailed 1.5gb per image scans of real military maps from many of the units (all of the divisions, sometimes even smaller units) plus the war diaries (written in Russian, you'll need a translator for those) of almost ALL units even small ones. It's super interesting and I've used them for a research I was doing on the Italian Alpini corps on the Don. Exact positions of the units, of the artillery, it's awesome! BTW I hope you'll do a few videos on operation Little Saturn and Ostrogorzk-rossos.
I don't think it makes sense for Hoth and Paulus to "strike together" from a tactical standpoint. Hitting Stalingrad from multiple directions was a good thing. The reason they failed to take the city in the first place is they failed to isolate it. In that regard, the soviet spoiling attacks on the northern flank were highly effective, even if it didn't seem that way initially.
TIK, Oddball raised an interesting question. We know the Wehrmacht had trouble supplying their troops because they had to relay/replace rail lines to take German gauge rolling stock (which differs from the Russian gauge), had to make longer and longer round trips to and from Germany to army supply depots, etc. Why didn't the OKH and OKW spend more effort into taking Leningrad/Petrograd in 1942 and not only clear the Baltic of the Russian Navy, but also obtain a port from which they could more readily supply the northern half of their front in Russia? I know the terrain in that area is not really suited for armor, but it seems that they really did not put a concerted effort in after the winter of 1941-42.
There is another consideration vis a vis a one division corps. Corps and Divisions serve different functions. Corps are subordinate headquarters of an army and typically take responsibility for a portion of the army's area of responsibility, a length of front, for example. It is responsible for developing supply lines, intelligence etc etc etc within that sector. It then uses that infrastructure to supply the divisions it is assigned.
A division is a tactical asset used for combat operations. It is moved, by the army commander, between sectors to perform specific tasks as the situation demands. While doing that it draws on the resources and infrastructure of the corps to which it has been assigned.
Thus, at times a corps may command a lot of divisions (up to five perhaps) but then, a few months later, the tempo of operations changes and most of those divisions might be moved away leaving perhaps one or two to cover what is now a very quiet sector of the front. The corps till retains the responsibility for developing and maintaining infrastructure within its area of responsibility for up to five divisions.
Yes, the strategic element is crucial for understanding WHY an operation was undertaken. The logistical level is vital to understand LIMITATIONS on what could/couldn't be done, and how jamming every available person into a theatre of operations might look good on paper yet not prove effective. As an aside, I've always thought of the German logistics of Stalingrad/Caucuses as an extreme version of the Western Allies having to run their logistic truck convoys (at least they had trucks, although of course they themselves ended up consuming prodigious amounts of fuel otherwise intended for armoured divs) from Normandy up to the time of Market Garden as they'd not taken The Scheldt and Rotterdam etc.
Finally, the local view is crucial for understanding concentration of force. The whole concept of a 'breakthrough and exploitation' relies on you bringing superior force to bear on a part of the front so as to crack it so your exploitation forces (armoured and motorized divs) could go to work.
Leave out any one of these elements and you all but MUST get a misleading appreciation of any military operation/theatre.
Looking at the map of the Germans controlling Sevastopol and Rostov (and Odessa to the west) and pushing towards Maikop and Grozny: Was there any naval action going on in the Black Sea? Were there any considerations for a sea invasion to get around the Soviet front lines and strike as Grozny from the south? What role did the Soviet Black Sea Fleet play after Ukraine fell to the Germans?
Great clarification at minute 9 "The map is not the terrain."
Another purpose of a corps with only one division is that it is an active HQ that can be reinforced with other units if that becomes needed.
You could add some kind of health bars to units for easier comparison?
Good stuff, thank you.
American here, just wondering what you mean by the 77th brigade? I've been running a few searches (duckduckgo) and can't find anything significant, other then perhaps one from "UKdefenseJournal" merely mentioning their seemingly covert role in 'national security'. It was ambiguous to say the least...
Thanks for the upload Tik.
Please do a video on Indian army organization
Excuse me TIK can u make a video about your analysis why rommel didn't participate in barbarossa, and if he had participate, would germany won at eastern front?
Hey TIK, I can't seem to find a book that you mention quite a bit -> Vasily Chuikov's The Beginning of the Road. Any idea where I can buy a copy?
Holy Crap. Very clear. I love the use of that game I have never heard of. I am gonna go look at that. I bet a hundred bucks right now, that the game doesn't work on My Linux PC - I won't touch the hegemonic operating systems and I won't be talked into it... Steam-With-Proton is okay, I am glad it works, when it does, so there are SOME stuff I get to see that is designed for the Hegemonic OSes.
IF I can't attain or even like the Game that is used in the video, I still enjoy the videos from TIK.
CK2 is very good game (tho very complex), it doesn't need high end computer to run and you would lose your bet, sorry ;)
@@Jhorsma I ain't gonna be sarcastic but you are askin for it. I have no time. I will spare you. Sorry
@@Jhorsma Ad hominem. Kiss mine boyo.
THANK YOU FOR THOSE EXCELLENT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS! BTW, IS IT THE PAUL MCCARTNEY TIK'S PATRON?
Imagine ....
@@davidburroughs7068 WELL, THE FAB FOUR WERE VERY FASCINATED WITH HILER; THEY WOULD LIKE TO RAISE THEIR HANDS AND YELL DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALES. YOU CAN EVEN SEE IT IN A RUclips VIDEO FROM AIRPORT IN AUSTRALIA. AND ON ANOTHER HAND, AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE OPENING OF THE APPLE CORPORATION MACCA SAID THIS IS THEIR ATTEMPT OF "WESTERN COMMUNISM'.
Always glad to see your thoughtful vids, although I have some infrequent differences. My comment here is a "What If" comment.
Suppose Hitler had threatened/persuaded Petain and Franco to allow a very limited number of German troops to conquer Gibraltar, and so allow the French/Italian/Spanish Navies to deny access to the Med to the Brits? This would have taken some doing, but not impossible, IMHO.
Going along the same lines, suppose Hitler had persuaded Stalin to take a plunge south, into Turkey, and so get a warm-water port, guaranteed by the Germans as a Soviet "sphere of influence", and aided by the German blockage of the Straits of Gibraltar. Perhaps a hugely inflated number of German troops involved would have served to allayed Stalins fears of a German Invasion. It's possible Stalin might have taken the bait, and so diverted enough troops from the defense of SovUnion to allow Barbarossa to succeed on original time scale.
Of course, all of this would have been a gigantic ruse, in preparation for Operation Barbarossa. Done right, such a plan would have forestalled the Italian invasion of Greece, and the subsequent German invasion of the Balkans, which had a negative impact on Operation Barbarossa. At the least, the devastation of German airborne troops, and their aircraft during the Crete operation might nave been avoided, with those troops and aircraft being able to participate in Barbarossa.
Granted, a lot of things would need to have been done properly by the Germans, but I think not impossibly so.
I await your comments. raf
First of all, if Franco allows this, the British completely blockade Spain and someone needs to find around 500k tons of grain to feed Spain with. Secondly, the Med is already closed from the Western end to all but very occasional very heavily armed convoys - everything else goes around Africa and up to Suez - so completely closing Gib does less than you think. Third, attacking Turkey is going to get you bogged down in Anatolia, which has Russia-scale logistics issues. Finally, leaving Crete alone lets bombers based there bomb the Rumanian oil fields.
not that accuracy description this time...TIK .you don't mention logistics feed... from Osfront in order to have any operations. ..that is Maybach (command)
Short technical question: At 12:00, how do You make these maps, and where do You get the templates with contemporary borders from?
_Piecemeal_ is the terminology that you are looking for.
This battle was crazy
Question:if the Germans came next to Stalingrad and maikop ,grozny how couldn't they stop the supplements of Baku.they might have blocked.They were too close to Caucasus.i don't mean invading Baku but blocking the supply through Volga or whatever.im from Baku btw
What was the Point of Langermann's 24th Panzer Corps? Your answer is nonsense. The 24th Panzer Corps was established at the start of the war as a defensive / support unit and that was what it essentially should have stayed as throughout the war. The problem the unit encountered during Blue was it was used as an offensive unit, something it was not designed for, nor its men trained for.
I may have mentioned pocket death in one of your other videos. Early in Barbarossa, the Germans noticed that otherwise healthy young men in the encircled Soviets forces would just die without apparent cause. The Germans sent pathologists to investigate, came to no conclusion, then forgot about it.
Later in the war, when the Wehrmacht was in the tough spot, they noticed this in their troops.
Apparently, a person can just die in the type of stress as faced by all sides of WWII.
I have not heard of this in any recent and even not so recent events, so we are not in that much stress
It may make sense in hindsight to send the Axis allies north while shipping German units south, but I wonder if that would have made any logistical sense to have trains shipping units from Italy to Lenningrad when you thought the Soviet army in the south was already routed.
You look closer and closer to Phil Collins..... against all odds!
"Take a look at me now" says TIK...
On Axis allies in the south - not only logistical but geopolitical? How would Romania and Hungary have reacted if their armies were sent north while Germany carves up the south? Wouldn't it also be a *political* decision to send the axis allies south?
can u tell me the best books about ww2 eastern front where there is every battle described even small battles
The one book I would recommend for the entire Eastern Front is "When Titan's Clashed" by David Glantz. There are small battles that are missed, simply because it would be impossible to make one book covering every battle on the Eastern Front, but a fantastic book and great starting place overall.
Is there any way of buying and downloading TIK's documentaries?
Sir TIK I have a question for you, in you're video (What Causes a Recession or Depression) you said if I remember correctly that when a recession hits many workers in the capital goods industries and workers in general will become unemployed, but to counteract this workers would be willing to work for less giving the economy a boost to help those industries. My question is with all the spicy air going around will this make a recession even worse as many people cant't or don't want to work and many industries have shut down because of the spicy air. Or is it like any other recession?
The only workers willing to work for lower wages are immigrant workers. Native workers do not move back down the wage ladder in capitalist societies because the state guarantees the labour market as an arbiter (Robert Miles, 1986). Every time there is a labour shortage, it's filled by migrant workers (40s, 60s 2000s). If you're talking about worker mindset, the desire for accumulation of wealth will eventually drive workers into jobs.